Yet another scenario gameplay thread

Too many toddlers

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This is Connor Anderson. Connor already participated in a Seven Toddlers challenge, where he gained notoriety for reading to the kiddos with his back turned to them all the time.

I don’t generally create new sims, but instead re-use old ones that I’m attached to in numerous parallel universes. Connor is the oldest of three brothers: Connor, Sigstein and Amadeus Anderson. Add in Connor’s elderly father and we have a full set of sims for the scenario.

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My game is not updated, so this may not be possible under real scenario rules:
First I pulled Hank and the triplets from my library. I aged the triplets down and then designated another copy of Connor as their father to create a grandfather/grandparent relationship between Hank and the boys. Then after entering the game I deleted adult Connor to prevent him from swinging by all the time.

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That leaves us with Hank and the triplets.

Their revised backstory:

The triplets’ parents went to a weekend trip to Sulani, after the grandfather, Hank, had agreed to take the little tykes in. However, Saturday evening, halfway into their trip, Hank receives a call from the children. They reported that the volcano has erupted and the smoke in the atmosphere prevents planes from starting. Hank will have to watch over the triplets for an unforeseeable time. Could be a day, or a week… two at most…
Caught in a Donald Duck & nephews situation, Hank cusses a bit, but that doesn’t clear the air over Mua Pel’am any faster.

The scenario starts Sunday at 8 a.m.

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Hank’s house (from the gallery) is not equipped for child care at all. He cleaned out the garage/workshop to make room, but right now it is just a dreary, empty room.

The triplets move in:

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In front we have SIGSTEIN, the middle child, and with a FUSSYness matching his birth order. One day Siggy will show them all!!!

In blue we have the baby, AMADEUS, normally a proverbial bundle of joy and very carefree, but in his parents’ absence he has become CLINGY.

And finally we have CONNOR, the firstborn, who is also secretly Hank’s favorite. Connor is a CHARMER chatterbox who wants to do well in everything, but unlike Siggy he doesn’t necessarily need to be the best.

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First order of business: Order a ton or so of sand and have the delivery truck empty it in the backyard. This will get the children started on their imagination skill, but it will also sneakily solve our money problem. Hank is an elder fresh out of CAS, and although I gave him a job as critic, that won’t cover our expenses. But if the boys “accidently” dig up seashells… well, Hank paid for the whole load, so the seashells are his now, too, right?

Except for the very first one, that Siggy dug up. That one is special, therefore it goes onto Hank’s desk where it can radiate its Inspired aura while he writes or cooks.

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Speaking of cooking: In the rotational save Hank is a fast food junkie. He enjoys eating, but hates cooking. So I thought I could be clever and bake some brownies. The game didn’t let it fly, it flagged the activity as cooking and slapped Hank with a tense mood.

That was the point where I invested in a planter box and a packet of veggie seeds. They’ll be needed anyway to keep the tots in a good mood.

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Totally not the preferred grandson, Connor then received some lessons in critical thinking via the good old Memory game.

I found thinking to be the hardest skill to raise. In regular play my sims get thinking skill from a wading pool, but I don’t want to use cc here. The toddler tablet is too slow, the same goes for “What is this”, and building blocks require Thinking 2, so that leaves only the cards? Unless I’m overlooking something.

Tip:
- Always cancel the flashcards interaction two seconds before it would end normally. That way you can start again immediately.
- Have the toddler ask the caregiver, never the other way around. I had forgotten about that and Connor got angry for a while from “getting bossed around”.

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Hank then had to practice writing for his part time job, so he let the triplets play in the sandbox again.

Sigstein and Amadeus immediately started arguing over the bucket.

Siggy: “Itsa MINE!”

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Amadeus: “Okay, here, HAVE IT!” and proceeds to douse his brother with sand.

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A couple of minutes - and a couple of sharp barks from Connor – later, the two are best friends again and even helpfully fill each others’ bucket with sand.

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Speaking of being helpful: Salim Benali left this tray of grilled halibut out in the open, with his back to it. Now if we were baaaad sims, we could just steal the fish. But Hank is a retired cop, so let’s say Salim heard of his troubles and wanted to help out. The halibut is of course a present!

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With toddlers in the house, all shedules are voided. The boys had already been sleeping when Hank woke them up again for their fishie meal.
I love how Amadeus doesn’t want to look at what he’s eating. Also Connor looking impishly at Sigstein as if he knew that he'll mainly get fed by veggies from the inventory and could hardly believe his luck to get a real meal now.

On a sidenote, all three are full adults in my rotational save, and not just that, I created them as YAs, so never saw them as toddlers before.
I hadn’t anticipated how effin’ cute they’d be as toddlers.

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And then it is back to bed again! Meanwhile Hank takes a nap only, he still has some cleaning up to do during the night.

Also notice that he must have hired someone to paint the garage with a kid-friendly pattern and spread out carpets. It still doesn’t look cosy, let alone like home, but a little less uninviting.

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Monday passes without any special events. By nightfall Hank remembers that he still has to interview a food vendor for his critic job. It’s also a good opportunity to stock up on rare produce.

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Hank: “If only you could ask them nicely, I’m sure the vendors would gladly sell you ice cream and hot dogs. All the good stuff your parents are so stingy with!” (The Marketstalls mod requires Communication 3, and none of the trio has that yet.)

If Hank had his way, he’d spoil the triplets rotten with unhealthy food. But he feels that doing this too often is unfair towards the actual parents. Especially now that they are sitting in an airport at Sulani, waiting to get reunited with their children.

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The triplets in their party outfits: Connor is the bear(dog?), Siggy the wolf and Amadeus the fox.

Hank buys a spooky candy for each of the boys. He briefly thinks how few basic skills his grandkids have mastered so far. Perhaps Cole and Kara are a bit too lenient. Sure, children need to be children, but may Hank should teach them just a little bit…? He’ll have to think about it tomorrow.

If he lives to see tomorrow, that is. As you can see, at this point Hank was close to Death by Toddler from all the interactions. Time to put everyone into bed and let them sleep off their moodlets.

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Tuesday morning:

Hank: “You gave the bathroom floor a bath, so it’s only fair if I in turn give each of you a bath, right?”
Also Hank: BACKACHE! This used to be easier when Cole was little…

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Amadeus is often regarded as the little brother of the twins, despite them being triplets and his only unique trait that sets him apart from Connie and Siggy being his grey eyes. Truth is, the boy has come to rely on his baby status. Hank is determined to remedy this.

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Hank: “See? From up here you can see all of Detroit! Isn’t that cool?”

Amadeus: “Yeah. I wanna live in a biiiiiig towah downtown!”

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Hank: “Okay. But to get downtown, you’ll have come down here first. Carefully… you can do it!”

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Amadeus closes his eyes.

“I can do this! I can do this! (But nobody said I had to watch myself doing it.)”

I notice a pattern here? Okay, this is only the second time he looks away from something awful, but still. I’ll have to keep that quirk in mind when I play him again in the real timeline.

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Whoooooooosh!

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Hank: “See? You did it! I knew you could!”

Amadeus: “It was so high!”

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Hank: “And now you’ll go even higher!”

Amadeus: “Hahaha!”

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Hank: “Over the treetops! Touch the clouds! And the glitched festivals that hang in the sky!”

(Ooops, sorry, wrong save. But I really do have that in San Myshuno. And also floating apartment shells.)

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Amadeus: “Wromm! Wromm! I’m a plane!”

Hank: “I’m a…”

Amadeus: “You're that ship where fighter planes land on. Why can’t mom’s and dad’s plane just land on one and they come home by ship!”

Hank: “You miss them, huh? Between you and me – I do, too.”

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Evening routines in the garage nursery… only they are not routines yet and hopefully will never become routines! There has to be a way out of this, and soon!

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Connor was the first to get four skills to level 3: Movement, Thinking, Imagination and Communication.

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Two and a half hours later Amadeus reached level 3 in Movement, Imagination, Communication and Potty.

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Fussy Sigstein took the longest. At 6:30 in the morning of Wednesday, he got the same skills as Connor to level 3.

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And finally Hank got to Parenting 5 and level 2 in his career.

Winning the scenario means that Ohan’ali airport has cleared flights at 6:31 am Detroit time. I estimate the flight to take ten hours, so by evening the triplets will be re-united with their parents.

I’ll play through the final day, pull Cole and Kara from the library and then post again with the Happy End.

Skilling is over, back to actually playing the family! Also: I can use mods and cc objects again without fear of them giving an unfair boost B)

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Early in the morning a phonecall comes in: Mom and dad are coming home!

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The family celebrates with Hank's extra gooey mac 'n cheese.

So how do we spend the rest of the day?

I considered taking the children to the beach, but they have already built enough sandcastle. So the nextbest thing would be a trip to the harbour. So many things to see here!

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...like a drunk passed out in front of the pub.

Uh... on second thought you don't have to tell your parents everything gramps showed you, right? (Of course we all know that they WILL blabber about this.)

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...or the cat that ended up Brindleton Bay's mayor as a write-in candidate. Normally Hank wouldn't allow the boys to pet random strays, but Mayor Whiskers is well cared for and disease free. Probably not free of fleas, though.

Did you notice how Amadeus AGAIN turns his back and looks away from an unfamiliar encounter? Now I really have to work this into his character in the main save. Little things like these contribute to why I enjoy playing side saves so much. Everytime they teach me hitherto unrealized tidbits about my sims. For example Hank took up archaeology after finding trasure in one side save, my avatar sim took up DJing and so on.

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Hank isn't too fond of flock birds, so Connor scares them away!

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And now that having the grandkis is fun again instead of hour after hour of worrying, Hank takes a couple of pictures to reminiscence about later.

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The trip to the port was exciting, but also a bit much, so the triplets take a nap before driving back.

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Around 17:00 a cab honks in front of Hank's home. By the time the triplets reach the door, the car has long left. But before driving on it spit out the long-lost parents...

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...and the big sister that I added in an impulse. Alice is Kara's daughter, the triplets' half-sister. She's a bookworm like Hank, and a bit shy, so she really enjoyed the short vacation with just mom and dad.

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Connor: *chatters away*

Kara: "Wow, Cole, listen to the little ones! They are so much more articulate than when we left them! We have to thank your father!"

Siggy: "Dis weekend S UCKED!"

Kara: "And also have a TALK with Hank."

And that's it, the Happy End.

I could re-use the thread for Connor's Seven Toddler Challenge that I mentioned in the beginning. I failed that one (as in: I didn't get everyone's skills up, but no toddler got taken away), but it was still fun.

That was awesome!! ????

I love your toddler scenario! What a good grandpa! :)